


burning like the sun

by hotmesslewis



Series: Lewis and Clark - Reincarnation [6]
Category: Historical RPF, Lewis and Clark
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, First Time, M/M, Tags Are Somewhat Misleading, car make out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 06:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14868254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmesslewis/pseuds/hotmesslewis
Summary: Meriwether Lewis has a breakdown, and Bill Clark arrives just in time to be his savior.  (God I wish that were all metaphorical instead of literal.)





	burning like the sun

**Author's Note:**

> I mean, have I listened to "Make Out in My Car" repeatedly the last couple of days? Maybe so. Maybe so. 
> 
> Also I'm posting and running because, like, this is the first new thing I've written in years maybe and I can't tell if it's good or the tone is off or anything, so. Yep.

“You’re a hard man to find.”

The voice warmed Meriwether Lewis like the late spring sun, and he looked up from the corroded bolts on the battery of his car and into the amused hazel eyes of the redhead in the dusty, rusty red Ford pick-up.

“How would you know? Have you been looking?” His reply was barked out with a laugh.

“As a matter of fact, yeah. For nearly two days now. Checked with your mom and Mr. J, neither one had any idea where you were.”

“Yeah, that’s probably because, contrary to popular belief, including their own, I don’t actually live with either of them.”

“Nah, you just mooch off them, huh?”

“Well, yeah.” He leaned back against the front bumper of his car in a manner that he hoped was casually provocative and watched as Bill Clark drove his truck off the side of the narrow, deserted country road and pulled into the field in front of his car. He wiped his hands clean on the grease rag he kept in his trunk and shamelessly watched Bill’s body as the redhead got out of this truck. _Friends_ , a small voice said in his mind. _You told him you would be fine being friends._ “So you’ve been looking for me, yeah? Any particular reason why?”

“Nah,” Bill grinned. “Just thought I should probably, you know, soak up the presence of a great man like yourself while I had a few days free.”

He was simultaneously flirting with and mocking Meriwether, but Meriwether loved it.

_Just friends._

“You know, of course, that I always considered us equals, Bill, even though I was actually a captain and you were technically just a lieutenant.”

“Yeah, I know, Meriwether. And you probably considered us equals when I was a sergeant and you were my ensign.”

Meriwether looked down as he smiled. “Any chance you could give this ‘great man’ a lift to a hardware store?”

“Sure thing.” Bill peered curiously into the intricate insides of the car; Meriwether hadn’t yet closed the front hood. “What’s wrong with her, anyway?”

It was a small thing, but the fact that Bill had called the car “her” made Meriwether happy. “You see the corrosion in the bolts holding the battery in place?”

“Yeah.”

“I really need to get those bolts replaced. They don’t hold down the battery like they should anymore; they’ve been given me a fit for months. Should have replaced them awhile back, but so far I’ve just been able to tighten them and keep on my way and everything’s been all right and I’ve forgotten about them by the time I’ve driven by an auto shop. But today I lack the equipment to temporarily fix the problem until I can get to a place to get them permanently fixed.”

“It’s the equipment you’re having trouble with? Oh, don’t worry, Meriwether,” Bill said, affectionately patting his strong, muscular upper arms, “I’ve got the equipment right here.”

Meriwether snorted and stuttered with laughter. “Thanks, Bill, but I meant I don’t have the right size wrench.”

Bill smiled at him, sincerely. “You’ve got a good laugh. I’ll give you a ride to the store just for it.”

_Friends. Remember._

Inside the truck, the mood shifted strangely, from their light laughter and flirtations outside. The hot air felt solemn but also intensely intimate; Meriwether rolled down his window to let some of the heavy air out, hoping the tension would follow. It was a long ride to the store.

Bill cleared his throat. “Supposing I actually believe you about . . . all of this. About who you say we really are and everything.”

“Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.”

“Right.” Bill glanced at him quickly, but his eyes were hard to read. “Anyway, supposing I do believe that, where are we? I mean, in terms of who we are. Like, what are we supposed to do in our lives, living now?”

“I . . . I mean.” Meriwether floundered, but Bill hardly took notice, his eyes fixed on the road, the words pouring out of him like a deluge.

“Like, is it all supposed to be the same? Is it, is it supposed to be what it was? Are we, supposing we were them, how are we supposed to live up to that kind of past? Are we, god, I don’t know.” He sighed deeply. “What’s the point of all of this. I guess that’s the biggest thing that I don’t get. What’s the point of us, or them, or whatever, existing now. In this godforsaken world, what’s the point? I mean, Jesus. As if life wasn’t complicated enough, you’ve got to dump this kind of shit on me, too? This bullshit of, of fate and history and these, these . . .” He trailed off. He was frustrated, almost painfully so.

Meriwether watched him. Just watched him, that was all.

Bill threw another glance Meriwether’s way, and asked with some desperation. “Am I even making sense?”

“Yes,” Meriwether said simply. That was all.

Bill sighed again into the quiet.

“Here’s good,” Meriwether said two long, long minutes later, when they arrived at the hardware store.

“I’ll wait” was all Bill said, in response.

Meriwether darted into the frigid, over-air-conditioned store and found the wrenches, the one he needed, almost immediately, but spent some time wavering. Should he hurry back out, or should he wait, and give Bill some time to himself? More time passed than he realized, debating this question, and by the time he made it back to the truck, Bill had a sheen of sweat across his face. He was smiling again, though, and squinting into the sun. “Get lost?” he joked.

Meriwether waved the wrench in response and climbed back into the sweltering truck.

A minute after pulling out of the shopping center parking lot, Meriwether took a deep breath and started talking. “There’s, um. There’s actually quite a few ideas going around about why, you know. Why we’re here, I mean. About—I guess, about all of those big ideas. Fate and destiny and—”

But Bill cut him off with a hard and quick left turn, and a tense sound he made in the back of his throat. “Don’t. I don’t want to talk about that any more. I don’t even—”

“Oh.”

He had blown it. _So much for friends._ The one time that maybe, maybe Bill was taking all of this seriously, and he’d fucked it up. By, of all things, staying quiet. By not running his mouth, for a change—by trying to let someone else have their say.

But, goddammit, what was he supposed to say, anyway? How was he supposed to answer these huge questions like Bill’s, when he didn’t know the answer to them, himself? When he was barely a fucking adult? How was he supposed to have anything figured out? He didn’t even go to school; he couldn’t even hold a job. He wasted his days on books and driving and wandering.

“Jesus,” Meriwether swore quietly to himself, leaning his head against the side of the door.

_Aimless_ was the word. Which was funny, that someone with such a past as his could be so very, very lost.

“Did you say something?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Bill replied, staring at the road in front of them. He turned down the empty back road in the middle of the fields that Meriwether’s car was broken down on. Changing his tone, Bill asked, “Where were you going anyway? Down a road like this?”

“Nowhere, really. I was . . . just going.” It sounded stupid, but there was part of him that hoped that Bill would understand.

Bill pulled the truck up behind the beat-up Oldsmobile again and cut the engine. He looked at Meriwether strangely. “It’s just that this road is like two miles from my brother’s place, if you take the road straight on out,” he said.

_Shit._ No wonder someone, and not just someone, but fucking Bill Clark found him. Of course, now it looked like he was stalking Bill, so. Definitely not a win. _So much for “friends.”_ Meriwether had the grace to look embarrassed as he climbed out of the truck. “Well. Thanks for everything.”

“I can hang around a few,” Bill said, stepping down from the driver’s side and slamming the door behind him. “You know, in case you need any more help or anything.”

“Okay,” Meriwether nodded, and popped the hood of his faded blue Cutlass. Bill leaned against the front bumper of his truck and folded his arms, squinting into the light.

It took less than ten minutes, but the heat still got to him. The way the sun beat down on his neck, but it still wasn’t as hot the feel of Bill’s eyes. What Meriwether wouldn’t give to know what Bill was thinking, as he leaned over the engine of the car and tightened the bolts. Was he angry? Upset? Frustrated? What kind of thoughts were running through that gorgeous head right now? And would he, Meriwether, ever have the privilege of knowing him well enough to ask questions like that?

Finished with the battery, Meriwether reached up to close the hood, and jumped when he felt the lips on the back of his neck and the hands on his ass. He jarred, his hip hitting the bumper hard. “What the fuck?” he said, twisting away from the touch.

But the redhead was quicker, and planted his hands on the hood of the Olds on either side of Meriwether. Meriwether tried not to move, tried to be as blank as his mind. Bill took a deep breath and hung his head. “Fuck,” he swore to himself.

Meriwether side-eyed him. “Are you all right?” _Remember. Friends._

“Honestly?” Bill said, still looking at the ground. “No. No, I’m not.” He took his hands back, then, and whirled away, kicking at the tire of his truck.

“What’s— Can I help?”

“I don’t know,” Bill snapped. “Can you explain why I’m so goddamn _into_ you?”

Everything stopped working—his heart, his lungs; even the wind stopped blowing for a moment in time. And when it all started again, it came in a rush, Meriwether gasping, pulse roaring in his ears, everything spinning. _Friends, friends, friends,_ insisted the voice _._ He had offered it, he had to follow through. No matter how much he didn’t want to. He tried to ask it calmly, evenly, as the fields and the sky switched places. “How do you mean?”

“You know damn well what I mean.”

_Jesus._

And the man was on him again, a firm hand cradling his head, the other on the small of his back and bending him over the bumper as Bill kissed him, deeply and sincerely. _Friends!_ the voice yelled at him, but Meriwether shrugged it off and kissed him back.

_Friends don’t kiss friends,_ but Meriwether Lewis was damned if he cared because this, this, this. It was all he ever thought he wanted, to have Bill Clark grabbing the back of his thighs and pushing him up to sit on the hood of his car while he tasted him, deeply, deeply. Meriwether wrapped his arms around Bills neck; he wrapped his legs around Bill’s hips, and he pulled him in.

But the metal was hot—Jesus, even through his jeans, it was burning—and Meriwether was soon unwrapping himself and pushing Bill back—was it possible to push him back and pull him in at the same time? Meriwether wasn’t sure, but he sure tried—and planted his feet on the ground and stood from the burning hood on the car.

Bill took a step back, thinking he’d done something wrong. Well, in all fairness, he had, but he didn’t care too much about that right now, not with him here. “Did I—”

“No. No! It’s not you, it’s—the car, it’s hot, please don’t—” And Meriwether was reaching for him again, grabbing his t-shirt, and talk about _hot_. _Julia_ , said the voice in his head, but damn Julia. He couldn’t help but compare. And stupidly, out loud, his mouth next to Meriwether’s ear that he’d just been nipping at.

“Julia never—”

Idiot, of course. Of course, he’d turn away, then.

_Julia._

“Shit.”

_Friends._

“We should stop,” Meriwether said.

“No, we shouldn’t.” Bill just couldn’t stand to leave him alone, reaching out, touching his hands, his forearms, _and did he have any idea, any fucking clue how difficult he was making this?_

“Julia,” Meriwether said. “Bill, you’ve got a girlfriend,” he practically moaned, because even the smallest touches felt so damn good.

“Not right now.” And Meriwether didn’t know if Bill meant he didn’t want to talk about it right then, or if he meant he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Bill, please, we need to,” _talk_ , Meriwether was going to say, but it wasn’t easy when the man of your dreams was trailing his lips over yours on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. “ _Please._ ”

“Don’t want to.”

“Bill, we said—god. We said friends.” He was trying so hard. He wanted so badly to just give up.

Why didn’t he just give up already?

“Don’t think we can be friends,” Bill said, his hands on Meriwether’s hips, trying to pull the damned stubborn man closer, _closer_. He had backed himself up against the car, now, leaning against the driver’s side door.

“But you said—“

“I know what I said. But it’s different when you’re here, you’re actually here, with me. It just makes me want you, _with_ me. I don’t know, I can’t say more than that. God, I can’t even figure it out. It’s—it’s just something else.” His lips on Meriwether’s jaw, and the man wasn’t resisting, thank god, he wasn’t pulling away.

“It’s like memory,” Bill confessed, and Meriwether gave in completely.

Pulling, leading again, Meriwether turned them around so he was up against the door to the backseat, and he fumbled with one hand behind him for the handle to the door. Opening it. Pulling Bill into the backseat. Somewhere they could get horizontal. He dug in the front pocket for the key, and when he found it, he leaned up into the front and cranked the car, turning over the engine and turning the AC on high. Bill pulled the door shut behind him.

“Where were we?”

But Bill wanted more than where they were, pushing Meriwether down, his head back against the armrest, and Bill was unbuttoning his shirt. Feeling his chest, hands running smoothly up from his abdomen, wondering if the sweat was from the sun outside or the making out or both. Pulling his shirt down around his shoulders and leaving it bunched about his elbows as Meriwether leaned up into him, chest to chest, lips to lips.

They really, really needed to talk more about this, but Meriwether just wasn’t in the mood now. It was something to do with that word, probably. _Memory._

Although Bill’s next move did give him pause.

Meriwether watched and Bill took it slow. Agonizingly slow. Graciously slow. He took his time. One slow, perfect button of Meriwether’s 501s at a time. Then it was just two think layers of cotton between him and Bill’s chest.

Bill whipped off his t-shirt, and then it was one, and Bill was leaning in to kiss him again. One hand against the window that was beginning to fog in spite of, or perhaps because, of the AC, the other hand supporting Meriwether’s arching back.

_This is good. This is good. This is very, very good._

“This is good.” Bill breathed it out, echoing Meriwether’s thoughts.

Hands, slipping down off the window, around from Meriwether’s back, trailing across his ribs. _This is good._ They needed to talk, but this was good.

“Can I?” Bill asked.

“Okay.”

And Bill unbuttoned the fly of the boxers, and his hand was on Meriwether’s cock.

Meriwether couldn’t help it. He moaned a little. It was the first time that anyone (himself excluded) had touched him. Embarrassed, he looked to Bill, but Bill didn’t seem to mind, and Meriwether wondered if he’d even noticed, what with the way Bill was looking at him.

Slowly, as if he was scared he would do something wrong or hurt Meriwether or something, Bill wrapped his hand around Meriwether and began stroking him. Too slowly.

“Am I doing this right?”

“Do it how—um. _Oh._ How you’d do it to yourself. But, no, wait, hold on. Hold on hold on hold on.” Meriwether struggled to sit up, his loose jeans and boxers slipping down over his hips as he did. “It’s not— You need. You need to take yours off, too. I want to touch you, too.”

“Okay,” Bill said, laughing a little bit, and nervously. “It’s just that I’ve never done this before.”

“Neither have I,” Meriwether said.

And Bill stopped cold, his belt half off. “What do you mean?”

Scared, now, Meriwether swallowed hard before he answered. Bill watched him. He watched his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck. “I mean, I’ve never done this before.”

“What, any of this?”

“N-no.”

“You mean, with a man, right?”

“No,” Meriwether said, mortified and shy, now, twisting out from under Bill, pulling his boxers, his jeans back up. “I mean, I’ve never done any of this. With anyone else.”

“You’re— you’re not a virgin, are you?”

Meriwether didn’t answer. He just looked away, cheeks hot with sunburn and shame.

Bill sat back into the seat, running his hands through his perfect, perfect hair. “Jesus. You can’t just spring that kind of shit on a guy, you know.”

“I. I guess I didn’t realize it would make a difference.”

“Yeah, it makes a difference.”

Meriwether started getting dressed, then, buttoning his jeans, his shirt, the buttons off-kilter.

“No, Meriwether, wait—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not a big deal.”

“I just mean—look, Jesus, it should be special, okay, it shouldn’t be with some asshole in the backseat of a car.”

“I thought that kind of shit was for girls,” Meriwether said. Sure, he’d wanted his first time to mean something, but he wasn’t going to admit it. But, really, why the fuck else had he waited, and who did Bill think he had been waiting for, anyway? Didn’t he get it? Anything with him was special, even a handie, or whatever it was going to turn out to be, in the dirty backseat of his broken-down, piece-of-shit of a car. He was Bill fucking Clark, and Meriwether Lewis was desperately convinced that he was in love with him.

“How old are you, anyway?” Bill asked, not making a move to dress himself.

“I’m twenty,” Meriwether said defensively.

“Jesus,” Bill swore again, like his girlfriend wasn’t barely eighteen.

Meriwether popped his jaw and opened up the backseat door. He slammed it, hard, after he got out.

“Meriwether, come on!” Bill yelled from the inside of the car. He pulled his shirt back on and climbed out of his own side of the car. He jogged around to the other side of the car, and took Meriwether’s hand, but Meriwether pulled away and crossed his arms. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

“Well, how the fuck am I supposed to be, then?”

“Just, you’re right, okay, it’s really not that big of a deal. It just surprised me, that’s all.” Bill leaned back against the car next to Meriwether. Their hips touched, and this time Meriwether didn’t pull away. “If I’m being honest,” Bill admitted, “it kind of scares me shitless.”

Meriwether looked at him coolly. “If you think you were scared, how do you think I felt?”

Bill’s brow furrowed, and he looked at the younger man.

“Look, okay.” Meriwether went into autopilot; he let words, meaningless, stupid words, take over. “It was a mistake. All of this was just one big, fat, stupid mistake, all right? We talked about this and we said we were going to be friends and that was it and this was just a big, dumb mistake.” He took a deep breath. “And I’m sorry if it was my fault, or whatever. I’m sorry for what I did. It was stupid of me.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bill said.

“Yeah, well, maybe.”

“I just don’t want to hurt you.” His voice was soft. There was something to it—it was kind, it was tender, it was full of something even scarier than anything that had been said so far.

Meriwether melted, and if Bill wanted him, he could have taken him right then and there, but Meriwether didn’t let himself give anything he was feeling away.

“This was all just a bad idea,” Meriwether said, instead, and Bill was the one who looked hurt. But Meriwether couldn’t deal with that. Not right now. Not like this.

So he gathered every bit of himself that he could and said, “I’ll see you around.” He crossed in front of his car and climbed in the driver seat. And when Bill finally stepped away from the car, he put her in drive and took off down the empty road.

But he looked back as he left, at the man left standing at the edge of the field, staring after him.


End file.
